Felix Pestemer

Felix Pestemer was born in Braunschweig in 1974 and studied fine arts and illustration in Berlin and Barcelona, respectively. He is co-founder of the Puttbill label for picture books and graphic novels.

His first graphic novel »Der Staub der Ahnen« (2012; tr: The Dust of the Ancestors) follows a museum guard as he travels to his old home on the Day of the Dead. Pestemer uses detailed, hand-drawn, and colorful pictures to showcase the customs and traditions surrounding the Mexican holiday, on which – according to popular belief – the dead return from the afterlife to celebrate with the living. The »Tagesspiegel« described the book as »an artistically complex and impressive work«. In his second graphic novel »Im Auge des Betrachters« (2019; Eng. »In the Eye of the Beholder«), Pestemer focuses on the museum – specifically the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin – as a space of encounter and exchange: together with their grandfather, two siblings gaze at the paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, Arnold Böcklin, and Adolph Menzel while exploring the origins and interpretations of the works.

Felix Pestemer has also presented his work at the Academy of Arts in Berlin, in Angoulême, Mexico, Lucerne, and Linz. He lives with his family in Berlin.

Der Staub der Ahnen

avant-verlag

Berlin, 2012

Im Auge des Betrachters

avant-verlag

Berlin, 2019

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